5 Essential SOPs Every Business Needs

Sops or standard operating procedures
are crucial to the success of any
business no matter if you're an ice
cream truck or a Fortune 500 company you
need Sops to succeed but which ones do
you start off with so in this video
we're going to be covering five
essential Sops that your business needs
and how and why using them and turn your
company into a well-oiled machine but
before we get started I just wanted to
say please do stick around towards the
end of the video because I am going to
be giving not only a bonus sop because
we don't do things by halves here on
this channel but also a way on how you
can download for free an sop template so
that you can start using it and applying
it inside your business today so make
sure you stick around but now let's get
on with the rest of the video so Sops
are essentially your business's rulebook
they outline step-by-step processes for
various tasks that have to be carried
out inside your business and having this
well documented means that these
processes are repeatable consistent and
you can actually try to minimize errors
and also boost productivity we've done
studies you know
sixty percent of the time it works every
time having well-documented Sops not
only enhances team efficiency but it
actually also streamlines training for
new employees so if you've been
following me for a while you know that I
love talking about systems because it's
actually the Bedrock the foundation of
any successful company like I said
earlier it doesn't matter if you're an
ice cream truck or a van or even a
Fortune 500 company systems need to be
inside your business
the gas sure big
multi-conglomerate National companies or
International companies they may have a
lot more systems than a small business
but you need to have systems nonetheless
what comes after that are policies and
policies are a set of things that you
say inside your business can do or you
can't do and they fit as part of your
systems as well which I talk about in a
different video don't go to it yet but
I'll link it up here somewhere and in
the description below that you can go
and see the difference between all of
these but I want to summarize this very
quickly because you might be saying to
me okay we get this systems processes
processes by the way are a collection of
things of what you need to do inside
your business so if you need to repeat
things more than once you need to have a
set of processes to do that now you
might be asking me Tama what is all that
got to do with Sops well Sops are the
detailed instructions for the processes
they are the how to what your processes
are the what and this is what you want
to actually have inside your business
where you get get to that detailed level
where you're saying this is how you do
step one step two step three step four
do it this way here's a video here's a
checklist here's a quality control
measure so there's absolutely no doubt
of how it should be done and to what
quality and what the end result should
be and that's what these Sops are now
let's have a look apps five essential
Sops that your business is gonna need
but first and probably the most obvious
Universal sop is your client onboarding
and off-boarding sop now no matter what
business you're in you're going to have
clients whether you call them clients
whether you call them customers
investors buyers you're going to have a
group of people that you are providing a
product or a service to and it is
essential to make sure that when you
convert these potential leads into
buyers or clients or customers First
Impressions count and you want to make
sure that you do this the right way so
that they become loyal customers and
they give you a good reputation in terms
of reviews Word of Mouth terms of them
coming back and asking for more and
making sure that when they leave you you
have the perfect service and the perfect
goodbye so that they really want to come
back again if you wing it you might get
it wrong you might miss out certain
details certain steps certain things
that you wanted to talk about your
service that they don't even get to know
about because you forgot to mention it
and they end up thinking huh that
service is not that fantastic but what
if you actually said we do this and this
and this give them an amazing experience
making them say that place is awesome
I do not want to go anywhere else again
I don't care how much they charge me in
the future that is my place and I'm
gonna go there think of it a bit like a
Lego set for example if you receive a
box with missing pieces of your Lego set
you're not gonna have a great experience
ah here it is instructions to fit in
half everybody like you
know one breathe
if you are missing certain aspects of
your service or your product or your
delivery or their experience that's
going to always have a negative impact
so having this sop where you outline
every single step by step and you keep
improving it over and over again because
you begin to get reviews of people when
you're off-boarding them because part of
your off-boarding sop should have some
kind of feedback process where you're
actually getting that feedback and
improving and going back and having that
continuous loop of improving your sop so
that really is an important sop client
onboarding and off-boarding next we have
employee onboarding and off-boarding
process now before you say to me Tamara
I do not have a team I do not have any
employees even if you are a solopreneur
you still will run your business to a
degree where you are probably going to
have to deal with some kind of
subcontractors or accountant or having
an assistant and these people as well it
is crucial to make sure that you onboard
them and off-board them in the right and
correct manner because this is where it
becomes important so that people do
exactly what you want them to do because
the number of times I've heard people
say I hired this person or I brought
them on board and they sounded amazing
on paper and then they came in and they
did absolutely terribly and then I say
to them where were your processes did
you have Sops they say no what did you
say I told them to do this task and they
didn't do it the way I wanted did you
tell them how you wanted to do it of
course not
employee Sops onboarding off-boarding
important making sure that they come
they join they understand the mission
they understand the vision they
understand why you're doing the business
in the first place they understand what
it is that you're going to do and where
do you store your Sops and where do you
have your strategy and where do you put
your documents and how to actually
report in sick making sure that they
understand where to do their job and how
to find the information on how to do
their job and who they need to report to
and how do they need to report and to
what extent all of this is going to be
important and having this outlined right
at the beginning where you bring on
people and you say this is what my
company is about this is what we stand
for these are our ethics these are our
morals these are our values this is our
strategy this is our vision this is
where you fit in these are all of the
people that you're going to need to
speak to and this is how we have fun
ever visited a business and you had an
absolutely amazing experience best time
in your life and you just were buzzing
and you go and recommend that business
to your friend and they have the
absolute worst time in their life it's
probably because they didn't have a
customer service sop and that's why
there was such a disparity in the
consistency of the service that was
provided having a customer service sop
from the get-go tells your team members
and yourself how you're going to deal
with clients throughout their entire
customer experience right before they
buy towards the onboarding to when there
are particular problems and how to deal
with those problems and giving your team
members an sop with step-by-step
guidelines of what happens when things
particularly go wrong is going to be
really crucial also empowering them with
the policies that you have so your Sops
will include the step-by-step guidelines
but also it makes them enforce these
policies that you have put down remember
your policies are this wall that you've
built around your business where you've
said what we as a business can and what
we can't do so you want to empower your
team members to be able to actually do
things for your clients and take
decision Visions based on what they're
hearing about the experience without
them having to go and ask their line
manager or ask you and and make the
customers absolutely frustrated in the
process if you know that these things
are potentially going to happen and
you've got procedures and processes for
them then the team members won't Panic
if they're trained well they know
exactly what to do and that even if
something goes wrong the customer
experience is still amazing and people
will forget it however if your customer
experience is terrible no matter how
good your product or service is you will
get people that have a bad experience
and they will not be quiet about it
and your business will suffer for it
you ever heard the expression the
customer is always right
yeah
yeah well
Here I Am the customer
that's not our policy so make sure that
you have a customer service sop it's
really really important and the
companies that have them like apple they
are the ones where people talk about
their customer service as an amazing
customer experience because they have it
all the way through from onboarding and
training to their team members and they
Empower their team members to say you
can do this you can issue a refund and
they give them that empowerment of being
able to make decisions and give your
customers and clients an amazing
experience by the way if you are finding
value in this video please take a moment
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also helps other business owners like
yourself see these videos and get the
same value thank you the next sop is
really a starter sop because as your
business is going to grow it's going to
need to be split up into many Sops but
for now as your business is starting the
very minimum you should have is a
marketing and sales sop in terms of how
are you going to generate leads for your
business and how are you going to
convert those leads into sales and make
that sale and outlining the step-by-step
process does a couple of things the
first thing it does is it really helps
you improve that process and track and
make sure that the process is repeatable
of what worked and then you can go back
and change the things that didn't work
and keep on improving it but also as you
begin to grow and you begin to hire
sales people or marketing people you
will have a process of what's actually
worked in the past and a set of steps
that they can go in and try and then try
and improve on hopefully as you bring
them in but initially they don't have to
experiment with things that haven't
actually worked in the past and they can
start from the get-go and do exactly the
same things that you would have done to
make their sale and to generate those
leads so if you happen to go away on
holiday or if something happens
hopefully best of health to you but if
you fall sick or ill or somebody in the
family does that or you have to go away
in an emergency you've got people in
there who can pick up straight away and
keep making those sales and bringing in
that revenue for your business which
will keep the doors open whilst you're
not there but also as the business grows
and scales the same consistency of how
you're going to make that sale to your
clients is also remember we were talking
previously about customer service sop
and how you actually onboard clients sop
actually how do you market and sell to
them also needs to be consistent and
that's all part of the customer
experience if you will for example if
you don't want to do pushy sales and you
hire someone who then does pushy sales
that gives an inconsistency into the
customer experience so having a
marketing and sales sop right at the
beginning and then later on it gets
split up into many many Sops it's going
to be really important and must be there
right from the start in your business
the next sop is really directly tied to
your role and function as the CEO of
your own business and that is making
sure that you have enough cash in the
bank after all business is about making
money and you need a financial
management sop and that's really trying
to understand how money moves into your
business and moves out of your business
so how do you do invoicing how do you
collect payments what are your
collection terms what happens if people
don't pay what are your budgets where
are you going to spend your money how
are you going to pay people how are you
going to pay certain expenses what kind
of bookkeeping who's going to keep tabs
of the bookkeeping who's going to file
your account anything related to money
coming in staying in and going out of
your business you need to be on top of
and there needs to be an sop to keep you
on top of that because all too well when
we don't have an sop for that we tend to
forget about looking at our finances and
because we're entrepreneurs and because
we're probably most of us are
Visionaries we have the shiny object
syndrome and we go after our own passion
and after our own joy and just enjoy
business as it is and forget about the
finances and forget about that you
started your business to get that
Financial Freedom in the first place we
lost ourselves lost our duty
in the pursuit of great
we failed to do good like so if you want
to have that Financial Freedom I know
this is a tough one I know this is a
boring one but it's one that you really
really really really really need to have
inside your business
we over deliver here so I am going to
talk about a couple more Sops one of
them is the project management sop
making sure that you keep people on task
and what project management system are
you going to use if at all if it's just
a spreadsheet you need to identify what
tasks need to be done who's going to do
the task and how are they going to be
done and when are they going to be done
by now if you had seen one of my videos
where I talk about my YouTube workflow
there is one in particular where I do
look at click up as one of our project
management tools so that we can actually
start using our workflow for editing and
doing the videos it's an example but I'm
going to link it up here just in case so
that you can begin to see how we start
looking at project management within a
CEO entrepreneur as a use case for
yourself now another sop that you're
really really really really going to
need is an sop for creating Sops because
you want to have a template for
understanding how you're going to have
Sops and that all of your Sops are going
to be the same and later on as you your
business grows and you bring in more
people into your business you are not
going to be the one sitting down writing
out your Sops other team members are in
their different roles in their different
departments and you want to make sure
that the Sops are all consistent across
the board how are you going to write
your Sops how are you going to do
quality control where are they going to
be stored is there going to be a filing
system how is it going to be done and
having an sop to really make Sops is
going to be really important for your
business so as promised here are
instructions on how you can download
your free sample sop template there's
going to be a link in the description
below and also in the pin comment now
what's important is once you download it
what I suggest you do is have a look
through it it will give you a guideline
and an outline of how you will lay out
your sop and it will sort of start you
off but what you will need to do is you
will need to tweak it a little bit so
that it could actually be applicable in
your business but once you do you'll be
able to start using it in your business
today and hopefully it will be very very
valuable for you I hope you enjoyed the
video I hope you found it valuable I'll
see you next time